ROTICH BERNARD KIPRONO - Egerton University
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CONTRIBUTION OF ON-FARM DIVERSIFICATION TO INCOMES OF SMALLHOLDER FARMERS IN KONOIN DISTRICT, BOMET COUNTY ROTICH BERNARD KIPRONO A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate School in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for a Master of Science Degree in Agriculture and Applied Economics of Egerton University EGERTON UNIVERSITY October2012
Transcript of ROTICH BERNARD KIPRONO - Egerton University
CONTRIBUTION OF ON-FARM DIVERSIFICATION TO INCOMES OF SMALLHOLDER
FARMERS IN KONOIN DISTRICT, BOMET COUNTY
ROTICH BERNARD KIPRONO
A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate School in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for a
Master of Science Degree in Agriculture and Applied Economics of Egerton University
EGERTON UNIVERSITY
October2012
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DECLARATION AND APPROVAL
DECLARATION
I declare that this Research Thesis is my original work and has not been submitted in this or any
other university for the award of a degree.
Signature …………………………… Date……………………….
Candidate: Rotich B. K.
KM17/2404/09
APPROVAL
This thesis has been presented to the Graduate School for examination with our approval as
University supervisors.
Sign…………………………………Date……………………….
Dr.LagatJ. K.
Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Management, Egerton University
Sign…………………………………Date………………………
Dr. IthinjiG.K.
Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Management, Egerton University
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COPYRIGHT
All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced or utilized in any form,
electronically or mechanically or by any information storage or retrieval without permission
from the author or Egerton University.
© Rotich Bernard Kiprono.
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DEDICATION
I dedicate this work to my dad, Mr. J. Biwott and theentire family for all the support and
motivation throughout this great achievement.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to give thanks to the Almighty God, for seeing me through the course of my
studies both in Egerton University, Kenya and University of Pretoria, South Africa.I also thank
the all the Ministry of Agriculture officials and farmers in Konoin District who worked with me
towards this achievement.My heartfelt gratitude also goes to my research supervisors, Dr.
J.Lagat and Dr. G.Ithinji for their continued and tireless support, guidance and technical
expertise in the entire course and especially in development of the proposal and thesis writing.
Sincere appreciation goes to the Department of Agricultural Economics and Business
Management especially Dr.B. Mutai, Prof. G. Obare, Dr. G. Owuor, Dr. P.Mshenga, and Dr. H.
Bett. Their guidance throughout the coursework and proposal development was overwhelming.
Special thanks to Prof. V. Okoruwa from Ibadan University, Nigeria, Prof. A. Pannin (Ghana),
Dr. J. Muzenda (Zimbabwe), Dr. R. Mulwa (University of Nairobi) and Dr. J.Nzuma (University
of Nairobi) for their guidance while at the University of Pretoria. To Eric and Rachel, you have
been of great help to me, thank all and may God bless you all.
I cannot forget my colleagues at Egerton University, University of Nairobi, Makerere
University, Bunda college of Malawi, University of Pretoria and those from Zimbabwe for their
moral and technical support has contributed to this work. Thank you so much.Sincere thanks to
my parents and entire family for all the moral support. Thanks for all the sacrifices towards this
great achievement
My sincere gratitude goes to the African Research Consortium (AERC) and the CMAAE
Secretariat for funding my studies through the award of scholarship, research funds and shared
facility sponsorship at the University of Pretoria.Finally, my sincere thanks to the whole of
Egerton University fraternity. Thank you all and God bless you.
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ABSTRACT
Farm diversification is considered an optimal farm plan decision for mitigatingvarying
degrees of risks and uncertainties which surround agricultural production, and also has a benefit
of stabilizing or increasing income. Diversified agriculture is widely practicedin Konoin district
but smallholder farmers earn low incomes asevidenced by poor living standards amongst the
smallholders. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the role of on-farm diversification in
poverty alleviation among the smallholder farmers. To achieve this purpose, the study measured
the contribution of on-farm diversification to incomes of smallholder farmers and then
characterized smallholder farmers based on diversification.In this study an empirical
examination of on-farm diversification was carried out by use of cluster sampling and simple
random sampling procedures which were employed to sample 154 small-scale farmers in Konoin
District.The herfindahl indexand t-tests were usedto measure the contribution of on-farm
diversification to farm incomes and to characterize smallholder farmers based on
diversificationwhile the Tobit model was usedto identify the factors influencing on-farm
diversification.The study obtained a herfindahl index of 0.39 in a continuum of zero (0) to one
(1).Out of all the sampled farms, 30.5 percent of them were found to be highly diversified while
69.5 percent were less diversified. This shows that the smallholder farmers in Konoin District are
considered less diversified for purposes of income generation given that the index is lessthan 0.5.
On-farm diversification was found to have positive relationship with income given that the
highly diversified farms had bigger gross margins than the less diversified farms. Access to the
extension services positively influenced farm diversification. Market prices for the farm produce
and the distance to the product markets negatively influenced on-farm diversification.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION AND APPROVAL ............................................................................................ ii
COPYRIGHT................................................................................................................................. iii
DEDICATION............................................................................................................................... iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................................ v
ABSTRACT................................................................................................................................... vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS.............................................................................................................. vii
LIST OF TABLES......................................................................................................................... ix
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................ x
LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS ...................................................................... xi
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION............................................................................................. 1
1.1 Background........................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Statement of the problem...................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Objectives of the study.......................................................................................................... 2
1.3.1 General objective ........................................................................................................... 2
1.3.2 Specific objectives ......................................................................................................... 2
1.4 Hypotheses of the study ........................................................................................................ 3
1.5 Justification ........................................................................................................................... 3
1.6 Scope and limitations of the study ........................................................................................ 3
1.7 Definition of terms................................................................................................................ 4
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................. 5
2.1 Concept of on-farm diversification....................................................................................... 5
2.2 Role of on-farm diversification............................................................................................. 6
2.3 Review of models addressing diversification ..................................................................... 10
2.4 Critique of models addressing diversification .................................................................... 11
2.5 Theoretical Framework....................................................................................................... 11
2.6 Conceptual Framework....................................................................................................... 13
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................... 15
3.1 Study area............................................................................................................................ 15
3.2 Sampling design.................................................................................................................. 17
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3.3 Data collection .................................................................................................................... 18
3.4 Data analysis ....................................................................................................................... 18
3.5 Empirical models ................................................................................................................ 18
3.5.1 Herfindahl index and t-tests ......................................................................................... 19
3.5.2 The Tobit model........................................................................................................... 21
3.6 Model specification............................................................................................................. 22
CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION................................................................... 24
4.1 Introduction......................................................................................................................... 24
4.2 Characterization of small holder farmers based on diversification .................................... 24
4.2.1 Household Characteristics ........................................................................................... 24
4.2.2 Market characteristics of agricultural produce in Konoin District .............................. 26
4.2.3 Characteristics of Household incomes......................................................................... 29
4.2.4 Enterprise allocation by small holder farmers ............................................................. 30
4.2.5 Cash versus subsistence farming in Konoin District ................................................... 32
4.3 The contribution of enterprise diversification to farm incomes.......................................... 33
4.4 Characteristics of farmers based on the level of diversification ......................................... 34
4.5 Factors affecting farmers’ decision to diversify smallholder farming................................ 35
CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS......................................... 39
5.1 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 39
5.2 Recommendations and suggestions for further research .................................................... 39
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 41
APPENDICES .............................................................................................................................. 46
Appendix1: Socio-economic and institutional characteristics of household heads .................. 46
Appendix 1: Questionnaire for the study on on-farm diversification of farm enterprises in
Konoin District.......................................................................................................................... 47
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Population distribution and density by division ............................................................. 17
Table 2: Description of variables included in the Herfindahl index ............................................. 21
Table 3: Description of variables used in the Tobit model for diversification in ......................... 23
Table 4: Continuous socio-economic characteristics of the highly diversified and the less
diversified farmers ........................................................................................................................ 26
Table 5: Continuous socio-economic characteristics of the highly diversifiedand the less
diversified farmers in Konoin District .......................................................................................... 28
Table 6: Sources of income in Konoin District ............................................................................ 30
Table 7: Proportion of farm enterprise incomes ........................................................................... 34
Table 8: Independent t-test for variances in incomes of the highly and less diversified .............. 35
Table 9: Tobit regression results for factors affecting on-farm diversification ............................ 38
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Conceptual framework for household diversification decision making........................ 14
Figure 2: Map of the study area .................................................................................................... 15
Figure 3: Land allocation and gross margins from diversified farming in Konoin ...................... 31
Figure 4: Cash versus subsistence farming in Konoin District..................................................... 33
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LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
AAAE African Association of Agricultural Economists
AERC African Economics and Research Consortium
BDSP Bureti District strategic Plan
CMAAE Collaborative Master of Science in Agricultural and Applied Economics
DEFRA Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, London
DMU Decision Making Unit
FAO Food Agricultural Organization
RoK Republic of Kenya
ICRISAT International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
KCC Kenya Cooperative Creameries
KTDA Kenya Tea Development Agency
LADDER Livelihood and Diversification Directions Explored by Research
MPT Modern Portfolio Theory
MTP Medium Term Plan
SPSS Statistical Packages for Social Sciences
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
More than half of the human population in developing countries live in rural areas
where poverty is most extreme (World Bank, 2008). In Kenya, more than 80% of the citizens
live in rural areas where agriculture is their main occupation. In these rural areas, the
prevalence of poverty in absolute terms is 49.1% (RoK, 2007). Achieving stable and secure
household incomes is generally assumed to be a fundamental step out of poverty and food
insecurity (Henriette, 2007). Agriculture sector which employs most of the rural poor
contributes over 24% of Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) thus making it the
backbone of the country’s economy (RoK, 2007). There is need for ways and measures to
help smallholder farmers to achieve sustainable increase in their on-farm income.
While uncertainty and risk to varying degrees surround all forms of activity, Kimenju
and Tschirley, (2008) in their study found that it is more of a problem to agricultural
production than for industrial production. This is because the sector in general is faced with
different types of uncertainties such as; climatic factors, crop or animal diseases, price
fluctuations and policies related to agricultural production, marketing and trade. To mitigate
such uncertainties, farmers in developed countries use private risk management strategies
such as insurance, production and marketing contracts to reduce financial risk and variability
in production. According to Mathenge and Tschirley, (2008) the crop and livestock insurance
in Kenya and other developing countries is not yet fully developed. This therefore calls for
the alternative measures to curb these risks. On-farm diversification may be considered as a
spontaneous response to avoid many of these uncertainties (Mahendrarajah, 2005).It involves
rural households engaging in multiple agricultural activities within their farms and
maintaining such portfolios as a measure to mitigate against risks and increase income
(Frank, 2004). Normal recurrent and abnormal periodic risks are most easily weathered by
those households which have access to two or more economic activities. According to RoK
(2008) theidea ofthe specializing in two or three cash crops per plot is proposed in order for
agricultureto contribute to the increase inKenya’s GDP by six to eight percent.
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Tea farming in areas designated as having potential fortea growing is a major
enterprise and a core source of income to residents. A large proportion (60 percent) of tea
growers in Kenya have diversified to other farm enterprises including dairy, maize and
horticultural crops. Tea was the leading family enterprise among three quarters of all farmers
(Mwaura and Ogise, 2007).
Konoin District is endowed with suitable ecological conditions for agriculture and
most of the farmers engage in variety of farm activities. However, this was not the case in
about 10 to 15 years ago when tea was the only cash crop for most of the farmers. Land sizes
have also been declining due to the population pressure and fragmentation as a result of the
culture of inheritance (RoK, 2005). The main farm activities in the district are small scale tea
farming and small scale dairy farming, and food crop production. Food crops grown include;
maize, beans, Irish potatoes and vegetables. Dairy farming is largely for subsistence with
excess milk being sold. This surplus of milk is sold to the residents of the nearest trading
centres or milk processors such as Kenya Cooperative Creameries (KCC) and Brookside
Dairy Limited. The green tea produced by these farmers is sold to Kenya Tea Development
Agency (KTDA) which has factories within the district.
1.2 Statement of the problem
On-farm diversification is considered as a mitigation strategy against risks related to
agriculture and thereby increases farm incomes (Mahendrarajah, 2005). Although literature
has it that farm diversification reduces uncertainties and improve agricultural incomes, the
effect of diversification has not been establishedin Konoin district. According to evidence
from RoK(2005), thesmallholder farmers in the district are dependent on diversified
farmingfor their livelihoods.However, the extent of diversification and the subsequent income
generated has not been established. Further, the factors influencing current diversification are
not known. The study therefore aimed at filling this knowledge gap.
1.3 Objectives of the study
1.3.1 General objective
The general objective of the study was to evaluate the role of on-farm diversification
in poverty alleviation among the smallholder farmers in Konoin District.
1.3.2 Specific objectives
The specific objectives of the study were;
i) To characterize smallholder farmers in Konoin District based on diversification.
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ii) To measurethe contribution of on-farm diversification to incomes of smallholder
farmers in Konoin District.
iii) To determine the factors influencing on-farm diversification in Konoin District
1.4 Hypotheses of the study
The following were the hypotheses of the study;
i) The agricultural income of the less diversified farms is not significantly different from
that of the highly diversified farms; 2and the highly diversified; 1.
ii) On-farm diversification does not significantly contribute to overall farm income.
iii) The socio-economic characteristics of the highly diversified farmers are not
statistically different from the less or non-diversified farmers.
1.5 Justification
A rich related literature suggests that rural households adjust their activities either to
exploit new opportunities created by market liberalization or to cope with livelihood risks
(Weiyong et al., 2010).Motivation for this study came from the idea that having various
enterprises within a farm leads to stability in income. This is because returns from different
enterprises since returns do not all rise or fall in unison, so that if income falls in one part of
the business, this will be offset by rises elsewhere (Mitchell and Marsaili, 2006). Over the
past decades, there has been an outstanding trend of activity diversification in rural areas in
developing countries. Konoin District is endowed with suitable ecological conditions for
agriculture(Mwaura and Ogise, 2007). This therefore implies that on-farm diversification and
subsequent commercialization of the same could boost their incomes and food security.The
study is therefore necessary to guide the farmers on how to do farming in order to boost their
income. This idea is in line with Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger which is one of
the most important Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
1.6 Scope and limitations of the study
The study was confined to Konoin District in Bomet County with the sample drawn
from the smallholder tea farmers who own 2.0hectares or less. The fact that the study focused
on the level diversification for income expansion by smallholder farmers was the major
limitation of the study. This was because it did not look at other constraints which farmers
face. The study only targeted one calendaryear (2009).
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1.7 Definition of terms
Diversification: On-farm diversification is the practice whereby rural households engage in
multiple agricultural activities within their farms and rely on such portfolios for income.
Within the context of the study, it refers to undertaking of tea, dairy and food crop enterprises
within the farm firm.
Factory catchment area: It refers to the total area with smallholder farmers who
aresupplying tea leaves to a particular factory.
Hectare: This is equivalent to2.47 acres of land
On-farm activity: Agricultural practice done within the farm.
Poverty: This refers to a situation whereby a household survives with less than a
dollarperday(Henriette, 2007).
Smallholder farmers: Farmers who usually cultivate less thanone hectare of land, which
may increase up to 10 hectares in sparsely populatedareas, but less than 2 hectares in densely
populated areas with high agricultural potential.(Adeleke et al., 2010).
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CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Concept of on-farm diversification
This section presents a review of some studies which have been done on on-farm
diversification. Diversifying an existing farm business entails incorporation of alternative
enterprises (Mitchell and Marsaili, 2006).This entails both animal and crop production within
the farm and this is practiced for purposes of increasing income and food availability
(Mahendrarajah et al., 2005).Because land use change is fundamentally a spatial
phenomenon, there should be the incorporation of space as an explanatory variable in land
use decision-making (Colin, 2010). A key element in this regard relates to the
interdependencies between aggregate patterns of land use and the individual choices that give
rise to these patterns, where a given land use conversion is determined by the returns or
utility generated by that use at that particular location, and these returns, in turn, are largely
determined by the existing spatial distribution of surrounding land uses (Geoghegan and
Bockstael, 1996; Colin, 2010). While the linkages between the spatial arrangement of land
use and diversification are receiving increased attention within the economics literature on
the subject, few existing empirical studies investigate these linkages using individual
decision-makers’ (DMUs) data.
Diversification is an important way of promoting flexibility and countering risk and
uncertainty. Normal recurrent and abnormal periodic risks are most easily weathered by those
households which have access to two or more economic activities. Effective management of
multiple activities can help smooth seasonal peaks and troughs and it can even promote new
peaks. It is therefore, a key dimension of most household livelihood systems since it can help
in boosting farm incomes (Martha and Elizabeth, 1996). According to the farm diversification
research done by DEFRA (2007), reports on a wide range of issues that can affect both
decisions to undertake diversification projects and the future success of those projects were
brought up. These include validity of market research, capacity to develop a considered
business case, quality of business skills and training, availability of appropriately skilled
personnel, and regulatory controls, access to information, availability of specialists’ business
advice and access to finance. These were identified as the major driving forces boosting
diversification.
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Since agribusinesses are like others forms of businesses, the factors favouring
diversification as brought up by DEFRA, (2007) are worthwhile because suitable
environment encompassing finances, expertise, skills and relevant policies are required.
Grant funding and schemes such as the small firms loan guarantee schemes are of assistance
to many farmers but not all are able to take advantage. Tenant farmers as a group have a
range of issues specific to their particular circumstances. They often find accessing capital
difficult as they do not have the collateral available to farmers who own their own land.
Tenant farmers also can have problems with their tenancy agreements, some of which may
not allow particular kinds of, or in some cases any, diversification activity (DEFRA, 2007).
Diversification activities which change the use of land to a non-agricultural purpose can also
have tax and inheritance implications for the landowner.
2.2 Role of on-farm diversification
Diversification involves a tradeoff between existing and expected profitsand this
decision is made easier if spare capacityexists within the business. According to Mitchell and
Marsailli (2006) the expected profits must also be weighed against the investments required
to establish an alternative enterprise. Previous studies have found that people are willing to
reduce risk through diversification even though risk reducing activities lead to lower gross
incomes. This section reviews some of the reasons which make the smallholders to opt for
on-farm diversification.
While uncertainty and risk to varying degrees surround all forms of activity, it is
considered more of a problem to agricultural production than for industrial production due to
the influence of climate and other natural factors on the agricultural output and the length of
agricultural production cycle (Mahendrarajah and Culas, 2005). The finding further pointed
out that the different types of uncertainties that most farmers face emanate from climatic
factors, pests and diseases, price uncertainties and policies related to agricultural production,
marketing and trade. When making a decision to diversify, a farmer must make a trade-off
between existing and expected profits. This decision is made easier if spare capacity in
whatever form exists within the business. However, any expected profits must also be
weighed against the investments required to establish an alternative enterprise. Previous
studies by Mitchell and Marsaili, (2006) have found that diversified farmers tend to be older
and have larger farms, indicating that experience and business growth encourages the
willingness to diversify. Interestingly, it has also been found that people are willing to reduce
risk through diversification even though risk reducing activities lead to lower gross incomes.
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Another well documented fact on diversification by Mathenge and Shirley, (2009) is the risk
averse nature of most rural decision makers in developing countries because increased use of
modern inputs is likely not only to increase the expected returns, but the accompanying risks
as well. Further, it has been pointed out that agricultural credit for smallholder farmers is
severely lacking in most countries in Sub Saharan Africa making it difficult for poor farmers
to finance the inputs typically needed for increased productivity. This difficulty is especially
great for food crops which lack institutional arrangements that sometimes relieve credit
constraints for cash crops such as tea and coffee and cotton (Carter et al., 2004; Mathenge et
al., 2009).
According to Hardaker et al., (2004), most of the farm plans intended to maximize
expected returns will often be reasonably diversified before risk aversion is considered. With
risk concern aside, the mixtures of activities will typically make best use of resources and
subsequently raise income. Diversification can involve a number of things and the type of
diversification that best fits a situation depends very much on the nature of poverty issues in
that particular region. Maman et al., (2008) pointed out that farms tend to be more diversified
in the land in which water is relatively available and when income is low. Also diversification
positively influences income and food security. This is because many households use
diversification to avoid income fluctuation. It is therefore necessary to integrate
diversification with market development. This makes sense because farmers in the rural areas
are faced with market problems especially the weak bargaining position for their farm
produce.
Motivation for diversification comes from the idea that the returns from different
enterprises do not all rise or fall in unison, so that if income falls in one part of the business,
this will be offset by rises elsewhere. The new merit of diversifying needs to be considered in
terms of the perceived multiple risks (financial, legal, personal, price and market) associated
with an alternative enterprise, and considered within the whole portfolio of farm activities,
(Mitchell and Marsaili, 2006).
Farmers may adopt diversification strategies as a way to reduce the financial risks inherent in
their farm business because they (financial risks) increase with higher levels of leverage. One
might expect a positive association between leverage and on-farm enterprise
diversification(Mishra and El-Osta, 2002).Farmers should attain income levels similar to the
industry workers (and others) and the ability to attain the same income level should be based
on the assumption of effective labour use and other factors of production, all of which are
possible through farm diversification (Mahendrarajah, 2005). Furthermore, Adam, (2010)
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pointed out that by diversifying farms into rural enterprises, farmers are likely to grasp a
range of benefits which they do not often find in traditional farms. A greater stability in
income is achieved by branching out because this will increase the number of sources of
revenue to the farm thus ensuring that one is less susceptible to failure by any income source.
The annual returns show that tea enterprise enjoys better returns and may have a comparative
advantage in Kenyan highlands.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, on-farm diversification has been accentuated by the wave of
liberalization that swept the continent starting in the early 1990s, which has driven concerns
that heavy reliance on a few crops for cash income can, in an open market economy with
widely fluctuating prices, lead to instability in income that threatens rural livelihoods. It is
also true that, for many households that produce primarily for their own consumption with
small surpluses for sale, diversifying by adding cash crops (cotton, tea, coffee, fresh produce)
while continuing to produce for their own consumption can lead to greater incomes;
diversification into salaried wage labor and remunerative non-farm businesses can also
greatly increase and stabilize total household incomes. Thus, generally from the perspective
of managing risk and associated vulnerability of rural households, and in some cases from a
desire to increase incomes, farm diversification makes sense as a policy goal (Kimenju and
Tschirley, 2008). Markets for staple foods develop more slowly than those for cash crops for
three reasons. Many households practice tea farming more than any other farm enterprise.
This is because staples have a lower value for weight than cash crops, implying a higher
relative burden of downstream costs (transport, transformation, transactions costs) and thus
more restricted scope for trade. Staples in developing country like Kenya are typically traded
only domestically or regionally, not internationally, and their processing requirements are
more flexible than those of many cash crops. As a result, staples tend not to receive the same
level of investment from agribusiness firms.
Governments in Sub-Saharan Africa are more likely to follow policies that restrict the
development of private food staple markets due to concerns that unrestricted trade could lead
to food security crises. As a result, food staples tend to have a large wedge between sales and
purchase prices, to suffer from very high seasonal price rises, and to become very scarce in
more isolated markets whenever supplies fall short. For all three of these reasons, smallholder
farmers in the early stages of the agricultural transformation are likely to become more
diversified as they add cash crops and traded livestock products to their portfolio while
attempting still to produce all their staple food needs (Kimenju and Tschirley, 2008).
Successful diversification will often result in a more varied mix of activities—at the regional
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level of farm enterprises and the vertical level of economic sectors, including new input
markets and emerging processing industries. This will reduce community dependency on a
narrow range of outputs and, as a result, will reduce vulnerability to shocks from climatic
variability and volatility of commodity prices. One of the most common rationales for
diversification of (national or farm) output mix is to reduce environmental (climate shocks),
ecological (pest and diseases) and economic risk associated with uncertainty and variations of
net (aggregate or farm) income (Shawki et al., 2004).
Diversification encourages farmers to be willing to change and look out for other
opportunities. By adding new activities, they will learn what works for them and their farms
and thus will be able to make further changes in the future and respond to new opportunities
as they arise. The Northern Ireland Business, (2010) also hinted out that running a new
venture will provide the opportunity to increase skills and develop business style. This line of
thought makes sense because farmers may tend to gain experience on how to practice
different enterprises due to repeated venture into various farm activities. Furthermore, the
smallholder farmers could find the best combination of farm enterprises which may help
them fetch greater revenue.
Farm risk is also managed by being flexible in the short-term and having an ability to
maneuver in the long-term. In general farmers will diversify more with increasing degree of
risk aversion. Increasingly diversification can be costly if it means forgoing the advantages
that specialisation confers through better command of superior technologies and closer
attention to the special needs of one particular market (Hardaker et al., 2004).A good
decision certainly does not guarantee a good outcome. In this risky or real world, the correct
or right choice is not known. Most farmers are risk averse and will be willing to forego some
expected future income for a reduction in risk. The rate of acceptable trade-off depends on
how risk averse that individual farmer is. Evidence of farmers’ risk aversion according to
Hardaker et al., (2004) is portrayed by the scenario in which they buy insurance and adopt
on-farm diversification. Farmers as risk averters will not wish to make choices based on what
will pay best in the long run if that choice means exposing themselves to unacceptable chance
of loss.
Flexibility refers to the ease and economy with which the farming business can adjust
to changed circumstances. Hardaker et al., (2004) believes that flexible strategy maintains or
increases options that help a farmer accommodate risk aversion, manage downside risk and
increase expected returns. Greater flexibility implies better possibility to respond to
unfavourable events and to benefit from opportunities that crop up (Hardaker et al., 2004)
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and puts across different types of flexibility which are brought up by diversification; that is
asset flexibility which refers to assets with more than one uses such as land, buildings, cash
and fodder reserve. There is also product flexibility such as dual purpose sheep: wool and
mutton, market flexibility, that is products that can be sold in different markets that may not
be subject to the same risks such as domestic versus export market; fresh versus process
market, cost flexibility which is the ability toorganise production process to keep fixed cost
low in relation to variable costs such as contract workers versus full time workers. There is
also time flexibility that isthe speed with which adjustments to the farming operations can be
made. Systems with short production cycles are more flexible than those with long cycles.
2.3 Review of models addressing diversification
Farm planning models generally focus on theoretical issues of optimal diversification
under uncertainty (Mahendrarajah et al., 2005). In their study, an empirical examination of
farm diversification was carried out for a sample of farms under the assumptions of pooled
(classical), fixed-effects and random-effects regression models. The dependent variable of the
empirical model was split into four alternative measures of diversification (indices), and they
were defined over farm production (total) income. The micro level explanatory variables
which were considered to have influence on-farm diversification are farm organisation (with
respect to labour), location, time, access to forestry, farm size, experience of farmer, wealth
of farmer, farm labour and agricultural insurance. Farm diversification has, in principle, been
considered as a way to spread the different kinds of risk that farmers might confront. In
general, farm risk management strategies may incorporate a combination of production,
marketing, financial and environmental responses. Mahendrarajah et al., (2005)proposed four
measures of diversification (indices) which were assumed to incorporate the combination of
these responses with respect to the variable farm production (total) income. These indices are;
the index of maximum proportion which is defined as the ratio (proportion) of the farm’s
primary activity to its total activities. Thus, if the farm’s activities are ranked from largest to
smallest to its total activities, the index of maximum proportion should be the farm’s largest
activity. Thus, for increasing diversification the index of maximum proportion should
decrease.
The second one is number of enterprises index and this is the simplest index in which
we count the number of activities the farm operates. If the farm has no any activity, then the
number of enterprises index will zero. But, when the farm has nactivities, say i = 1... n, then i
(Pi ) will assign the value of 1 for each of those n activities and that the number of enterprises
11
index is n.Thus, for increasing diversification number of enterprises index should increase.
The weakness of this index is that it gives no weight at all to the distribution of the farm’s
employment over the activities.
The third one is the Herfindahl index in which by squaring the shares of a farm’s
activities, gives particular weight to the farm’s principal activities. It means that a farm’s
secondary activities are given only limited weight in calculating the index. This index is
insensitive to minor secondary activities. This is desirable since it focuses attention on the
major activities of the farm. This index takes the value of one, when a farm is completely
specialized in its primary activity, and should approach zero as N gets large. Thus, for
increasing diversification Herfindahl index should decrease.
The fourth one is the Entropy index which weighs the shares of a farm’s activity by a
log term of the inverse of the respective shares. It takes then the value of zero when the farm
is completely specialized, and it will approach its maximum when diversification is perfect.
Thus, for increasing diversification Entropy index should increase.
2.4 Critique of models addressing diversification
The distribution of the dependent variable is censored at its minimum and maximum
limit values, which has to be accounted for by the regression model employed. Due to the
censored nature of the dependent variable an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression would
yield biased estimates. Tobit model therefore provides a better measure because it accounts
for the qualitative difference between limit and non-limit observations and uses the
maximumlikelihood (ML) method for parameter estimation. This is desirable since it focuses
attention on the major activities of the farm. This index takes the value of one, when a farm is
completely specialized in its primary activity, and should approach zero as N gets large. The
Entropy index which weighs the shares of a farm’s activity by a log term of the inverse of the
respective shares gives less weight to larger activities than the Herfindahl index. For this
reason therefore, the Herfindahl index has an upper hand over the rest of the indices
2.5 Theoretical Framework
The expected mean-variance (E-V) approach which is an extension of
consumertheory underlies this study. Expected utility maximization applies usually to
situations in which people can choose between several economic or financial decisions that
entail possible monetary gains and risks. In those cases, they are supposed to maximize their
12
expected utility (choosing the solution that gives the highest expected utility) taking into
account their risk attitude(His ham et al., 2002).
Under the assumptions of an E-V approach, an individual’s preference ordering
depends solely on mean variance of returns (His hamet al., 2002).An uncertain prospect can
be represented fully by its mean and variance. The decision rule by the farmer is to choose
the appropriate mix of enterprises from the unlimited possibilities in order to maximize the
utility of income derived from the possible enterprise portfolios. The assumption here is that
the farmer’s preference function can be described approximately in terms of the mean and the
variance of returns. The households choose to adopt certain farm enterprise in combination
with other farm enterprises if utility with such an enterprise (UE) is greater than the utility
without (UWE).
Max Ui=f (UE, UWE).............................................................................. (1)
Subject to resource constraints and
UE-UWE >0............................................................................................ (2)
WhereUiis household iutility function, UE is total utility to the household derived after
adoption of certain enterprise to complement other farm enterprises and UWE is the utility
from other farm enterprises without the enterprise in question.
The assumption here is that the farmer’s preference function can be described,
approximately at least, in terms of the mean and the variance of returns. There are several
reasons why thisassumption may be valid. One is thatindividuals maximize expected utility,
andeither the underlying utility function isapproximately quadratic in income or
thedistribution of returns involves only the mean and variance. Hisham et al., (2002) also
asserted the existence ofa utility function for income U (E, V).
Where;
> 0…………………………………………… (3)
and
< 0…………………………………………… (4)
The model therefore is based on the assumption thatU (E, V) exists. Now the utility of
returns to the farm operator is adirect function of the mean and variance ofthe returns. An
extension of this model can be defined so that the choice object, the maximization of utility
of an enterpriseportfoliocase.
Chen and Dunn, (1996) in their review of Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT)pointed out
that the whole issue of diversification is central to many models of the household portfolio.
13
They added that it is both a precautionary strategy against possible fluctuations or shortfalls
and a response strategy to actual fluctuations or shortfalls. In other words, households
diversify to protect themselves against risk and, once risk occurs, to protect them from taking
more drastic, less-reversible actions. From the Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT),
diversification entails investment in several market instruments with imperfectly correlated
returns in order to reduce market risk. Thus in making decisions on the types farm enterprises
to invest in, the conceptual model shows that farm households consider how the anticipated
returns may be correlated with the chosen portfolio. Mathenge and Tschirley, (2008) pointed
out that risk averse households are likely to prefer portfolios with activities whose individual
returns are uncorrelated or negatively correlated. They also argue that since diversification
does not eliminate all the variance, the optimal portfolio is a trade-off between expected
returns and associated risk.
2.6 Conceptual Framework
Household decision making concerning investment, enterprise choice and resource
allocation will depend on institutional set up available, farm enterprise factors, technology
available, inputs and players in the production and marketing channels. The extent of on-farm
diversification adopted by the household will determine the outcome of income earned and
this will subsequently impact on the living standards of the household members. The
following diagram illustrates the conceptual framework of the study.
14
Figure 1: Conceptual framework for household diversification decision making
Source: Author’s
Household characteristicsAge, level of educationFarm income, access to more food items
Institutional and socio economic factorsCredit access, price controls extension services, private sector involvement
Policy environmentLand size, finances, technology, land tenure system,
Farm activitiesLivestock and crop enterprise characteristics
OutcomesIncreased farm income and poverty reduction
Household decision on-farm diversification
15
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
3.1 Study area
The study was done in Konoin District which is one of the districts in Bomet County.
The district is bordered by Kericho to the North and Molo District to the North East, Bomet
District to the South, Sotik District to the South West and Bureti District to the East. It lies
between 0025’ and 0043’ South of the equator and between longitude 35005’ and 35035’ East.
The district covers a total area of 486 kms2. The District was created in the year 2009. It was
curved out from Bureti District. The district is divided into 3 divisions namely Cheptalal,
Konoin and Kimulot(RoK, 2005).
Figure 2: Map of the study area
Source: Ministry of Agriculture; Konoin District (2011)
16
The district altitude varies from 1800 metres to 3000 metres above the sea level and
receives conventional type of rainfall. The district receives bimodal type of rainfall which
Ranges between 1,600 and 2,000 millimetres. The first rainfall which ranges from
800millimetres to 1000millimetres startsin the month of Marchand ends in June while the
secondrains which ranges between 600 millimetres and 700 millimetres starts in July to
February. The mean monthly temperature is 18ºC. The coldest months are July and August
with monthly temperatures of 17.7ºC and 19.9ºC respectively. The cool condition favours
dairy, tea, maize and pyrethrum farming in the district (MoA, 2011). The climatic conditions
of this area are influenced by altitude and physical features (escarpment, forests and
mountains). It is one of the districts in the tea growing region in Kenyan highlands. Most of
the land is under agriculture due to the suitable ecological conditions and about 60 percent of
the farmers are smallholders with less than 5 acres of land.
The major causes of poverty in the district include large families, lack of skills for
self-employment or paid employment, landlessness, and the poor infrastructure (characterized
by poor road networks) hampering access to markets, lack of affordable credit facilities, and
high cost of basic social services (RoK,2005). There are various operational water supplies
within the district, such as the Konoin water supply. However there is need to boost the
plumbing capacity of the water to increase water supply that will meet the high demand of the
local households. The agricultural sector in the district is characterized by availability of
agricultural land and favourable weather. The soils are generally deep acidic volcanic loam
which favors tea production. The rains favour crop production throughout the year (MoA,
2011). The agricultural sector is the single largest employer in the District. Over 20,000
residences are employed by this sector. Majority of the land is under cash crop (tea) with
35,994 growers’ producing 52,122,680 kilograms of green leaf in 2010/2011. The livestock
sub-sector is also equally important, producing 39,580,583 litres of milk and over 86,850 kg
of beef annually (RoK, 2005).
The revival of the new KCC and entry of Brookside has created a ready market for
milk produced in the area. Itisworth mentioning that the entire agricultural sector has been
adversely affected by rising cost of inputs and the general inflation that hit the country
because of the unstable shilling.
17
Table 1: Population distribution and density by division
Divisions 1999 2004 2009
Area
Km2Population
Density
/Km2Population
Density
/Km2)Population
Density
/Km2)
Konoin 87.3 38,879 419 43,495 468 48762 525
Cheptalal 95.8 26,809 413 30,054 463 33693 519
Kimulot 302.9 44,830 110 50,257 124 56343 139
Total 486 110,518 942 123,806 1055 138798
Source: Ministry of Agriculture; Konoin District (2011)
3.2 Sampling design
The study followedthe cluster sampling procedure to select the respondents. The first
stage involved random selection of one factory catchment area (cluster). The total area with
smallholder farmers who are supplying tea leaves to a particular factoryfrom the four
factories (clusters) in the district. This was because the characteristics of the smallholder
farmers in the district are assumed homogenous. Then second stage employed simplerandom
sampling method to select proportionate number of farmers from each of the zones in the
factory catchment area. This means that more smallholder farmers were selected from the
zones with many smallholder farmers than those from the zones with a few smallholder
farmers. A sample of 154 farmers from the population of the smallholder farmers in the
district was interviewed. The target population was the small-scale registered tea growers
from the register of Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) because they are expected to
be engaged on other on-farm enterprises. In the district the smallholders sell their green tea to
four K.T.D.A. factories; Kapkatet, Kapset, Mogogosiek, and Litein. The following formula
was used to come up with an appropriate sample for the study as per Nassiuma, (2000).
= +( − )Where n = sample size, N = Population, C = Coefficient of variation, e = Standard error.
C=25% (acceptable according to Nassiuma), e = 0.02 and N=11300 (BDSP, 2005).
= 3000(. 5)2(0. 5)2 ( 300 )(0.0 )2
This resulted to a sample of 154 respondents.
18
3.3 Data collection
Primary and secondary data was used in the analysis. A semi-structured questionnaire
was used to collect cross-sectional data on institutional and socio economic factors such as
credit access, price controls, extension services and private sector involvement. The study
also considered the household characteristics objectives such as age, level of education, farm
income and finally the data on-farm activities, which included the livestock and crop
enterprise characteristics. Secondary data was collected from the relevant literature from
Ministry of Agriculture and publications.
3.4 Data analysis
Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics with mean taken as a main measure of
central tendency. The Herfindahl index was used tomeasure the contribution of on-farm
diversification to incomes of smallholder farmers while the Gross Margin Analysis was used
to compute the income from the various farm enterprises. The tobit model was used
toidentify the factors influencing on-farm diversification in Konoin District. T-tests were
used for hypothesis testing while SPSS and STATA software were used to process data.
3.5 Empirical models
There is diverse literature on-farm diversification and some have been selected to
form the basis of this study. Mathenge and Tschirley,(2008) used double-hurdle model on
their study on off-farm work and farm production decisions and found households in the high
potential areas have a higher probability of allocating their off-farm earnings to use hybrid
seed compared to their counterparts in the lower potential areas. Agata et al., (2009) used
Tobit model on diversification of farm households in Germany found that irrespective of a
farm’s characteristics, income generated in agricultural production has a highly significant
influence on the household’s decision towards diversification.
Diversification can be measured in a number of ways such as the Herfindahl index
and the Entropy index. The Herfindahl index is desirable since it focuses attention on the
major activities of the farm. This index takes the value of one when a farm is completely
specialized in itsprimary activity and approaches zero as the number of activities increase.
TheEntropy index, which weighs the shares of a farm’s activity by a log term of the inverse
of the respective shares, gives less weight to larger activities than the Herfindahl index. For
this reason, the Herfindahl index has an upper hand over the rest of the indices (Clark, 1993;
Mahendrarajah et al., 2005).They can be examined with respect to farm production
depending on information available. Further, depending on limitations of data, measurements
19
of diversification in production can be examined using variables of area (land area under
production), net income (net revenue), and/or total income(production income).Although
there are different types of indices to measure diversification, Herfindahl index is quite
appropriate for on-farm level measurements because it squares the shares of the farm’s
enterprises thus giving particular weight to the principal activities(Kimenju and Tschirley,
2008).
3.5.1 Herfindahl index and t-tests
In order to assess the effect of risk between the highly diversified (DH) and less or
non-diversified (DL) farms, the variability in the gross margins (GMs) were computed. The
two groups; DH and DL were separated in terms of the index. The index above0.5 is termed as
highly diversified while the index below0.5 as less diversified.
The mean GM was computed by dividing the total GMs per hectare from all the farmers and
then divided by the total number of sampled farmers.
First, the gross margins (GM) were calculated from the net incomes of agricultural
crops and livestock products. GM is defined as revenue net off variable cost.
GMi = Ri VCi…..…………………………………………………… (5)
Where,
Ri = revenue from the thactivity; while VCi variable cost from the ith activity.
To al GM= GM1 GM2 GM GM4 GM GM6……………… (6)
GM/ a = t
Number f H …………………………………………………… (7)
The individual GM of all the enterprises, sum them and get the proportions ( ) of each
enterprise as percentage of total income from all enterprises, (Ai) as follows:
= A∑ An , denoting the proportion of each enterprise. ……………… (8)
Where;
Ai = total income from enterprise i, and
∑Ai=total farm income;
The Second step involved squaring of the proportions and summing them to obtain Hd as
indicated below
= ∑ Pi2 i 1 (Herfindahl index).............................................................. (9)
20
By squaring the shares of the farm’s enterprises, this index gives particular weight to
the principal activities. This index is insensitive to minor secondary activities and this makes
it desirable since it puts attention on the major activities on the farm (Mahendrarajah et al.,
2002). Hd is defined for net income, is the proportion of net income from crop i.
By squaring the shares of the farm’s enterprises, this index gives particular weight to the
principal activities. This index is insensitive to minor secondary activities. It is therefore
desirable since it puts attention on the major activities on the farm (Mahendrarajah et al.,
2002).
= ∑………………………………………………………………… (10)
T-test was then performed to compare the mean incomes of the highly diversified and less or
non-diversified farms.
The null hypothesis assumed that the mean incomes of the two groups were not different
while the alternative hypothesis assumed that the mean incomes of the DL were bigger than
the variances of the DH.
H0: 1= 2……………………………………………………… (11)
H1: 1> 2………………………………………………………. (12)
1represented the mean income of the highly diversified farms while 2 represented the
average income of the less or non-diversified farms.
21
Table 2: Description of variables included in the Herfindahl index
Variable Description Expected effect
Proptea proportion of net income from tea
farming
> 0.5
Propdary proportion of net income from dairy
farming
<0.5
Propmaiz proportion of net income from
maize farming
<0.5
Propveg proportion of net income from
vegetable farming
<0.5
Propbean proportion of net income from bean
farming
<0.5
Proppoltry proportion of net income from
poultry farming
<0.5
3.5.2 The Tobit model
The Tobit model was used to objective was to determine the factors influencing on-
farm diversification in Konoin District. The Tobit Model proposed by James Tobin (1958) is
used where dependent variable is limited. It describes the relationship between a non-
negative dependent variable yiand an independent variable (or vector) xi.
The observations are dropped if ∗ ≤ 0yi=Xiβ+εi ………………………………………………………… (13)
= ∗ ∗ ∗ …………………………………………………….. (14)
Xiis the vector of variables explaining the extent of on-farm diversification and refers to
the respective error terms to be assumed independent and distributed as ~ (0, 2). It is
well known that use of standard tools such as estimating an ordinary least squares regression
22
equation on the subsample of individuals above a censoring threshold producesinvalid
inferences. Because of this problem, researchers often use the Tobit estimator (Tobin, 1958)
with censored dependent variables. A key feature of the Tobit estimator is that it is based on
two important pieces of information for each individual: the probability that an individual’s
score on the dependent variable is above the censoring threshold and the density of the
dependent variable given that an individual scores above the censoring threshold. By
explicitly incorporating both pieces of information into the likelihood function, the Tobit
estimator provides consistent estimates of parameters governing the distribution of a censored
normal random outcome variable (Douglas, 2003).
The estimated coefficients in the Tobit model cannot be interpreted in the same way
as in a linear regression model but marginal effects have to be considered. To assess the
impact of the regressors on the extent of on-farm diversification variable, it is necessary to
analyze their marginal effects.
3.6Model specification
The econometricmodel used to analyze the data was specified as:
PerHd= β0 + β1 Hold + β2 Dage + β3Edu + β4Exp +β5 Off-Inc + β6Dmkttea+β7Dmktdary+
β8Dmktveg+ β9Dmktmaiz + β10Dmktbean+β11Dmktpoltry+ β12Mprtea+ β13Mprdary +
β14Mprveg + β15Mprmaiz + β16Mprbean + β17Mprpolty+β18Ext+ε
The variables are described in Table 3.
23
Table 3:Description of variables usedin the Tobit model for diversification in
Konoin District
Variable Code Description Unit of measurementExpected
effect
Dependent variable
PerHdExtent of on-farm
diversification
Herfindahl index ranging from
0 to 1(+)
Independent variables
DAGE Age of decision maker Continuous years (+,-)
EDUC Formal schooling Continuous years (+)
EXP Experience in farming Continuous years (+)
DMKT Distance to the market Kilometres (-)
EXT Extension access
The number of contacts with
extension officers in previous
year
(+)
HOLD Land holdingThe size of land owned in
hectares(+)
OFFINC Off-farm incomePrevious year’s income from
off-farm activities (KES)(-)
MPR Market price Kenya shillings(KES) (-)
24
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Introduction
This chapter outlines the descriptive results on socio economic characteristics and
empirical results on the identified variables that influence on-farm diversification. In order to
identify the characteristics of smallholder farmers and their activities in Konoin District, a
comparison of the highly and the less diversified households was made.
4.2 Characterization of small holder farmers based on diversification
The descriptive statistics presented under this section are socio-economic
characteristics of the respondents and their households(age, education level of the household
head, farming experience,household size, land sizeand off farm income) andmarketing of
farm produce.
4.2.1 Household Characteristics
Among the continuous socioeconomic characteristics, off farm income, household
size and size of farm land were found to be significant (Table 4).It was found that the highly
diversified farms have an average of 6 members while the less diversified farms have an
average of 5 members and the difference in number of members between the two group
means is significant at 1 percent. According to Hisham et al., (2002), family size is an
indicator of on-farm labour availability and an attribute that affects farm diversification.
Larger families may have pressure to create employment opportunities on the farm, and
consequently encourage the operator to adopt a land use pattern that utilizes available
resources more effectively, including family labor, in an effort to increase income. Land
holding in the highly diversified farms is 1.39 hectares while it is 1.02 hectares in the less
diversified farms. This was significant at 1 percent level of significance. The off-farm income
was higher in the highly diversified farms(KES 8651.06) than in the less diversified
farms(KES 6110.00) and this was significant at 10 percent level of significance. This scenario
illustrates that farmers often rely on off-farm income sources to boost their on-farm
agribusinesses. This corroborates with Mathenge and Tschirley, (2008) who pointed out that
in the absence of credit facilities, farm practices especially those requiring capital may be
dependent on existing sources of income. Under these circumstances, it is plausible that
25
earnings from off the farm may often be used to compensate for the missing and imperfect
credit markets by providing ready cash for input purchases as well as other household needs.
In addition, off-farm earnings could be used to spread the risk of using modern farm inputs.
To the extent that farmers choose traditional over modern inputs in order to lower their risk,
any mechanism that allows farmers to smooth consumption will raise the use of modern
inputs and increase farm productivity.
The average age of the decision makers in both diversified and less diversified farms
is about 42.2 years. The highly diversified are not different from less diversified farmers with
respect to age with a P-value of 0.98 showing that there is no significant difference between
them in age. Hisham et al., (2002) pointed out that the age of the farm’s main operator is a
critical factor in on-farm diversification because the farmers tend to accumulate wealth over a
lifetime. One would expect older farm operators to be less likely to engage in on-farm
diversification since age and wealth are positively correlated. Based on this relationship, it is
argued that wealthier farmers are less risk averse and hence less diversified. Hisham et al.,
(2002) found that the trend of on-farm diversification declines with age of the decision
maker. Since the major crop grown by 80 percent of the smallholders is tea, it comes out that
tea growing is widely common in the less diversified farms which are mostly owned by the
older members of the society. This observation is echoed by Tabitha and Tidsell, (2003) who
established that the proportion of land used for subsistence food crops declines with the age
of the respondent, as does the output of such crops as a proportion to total output of crops.
The decision makers from the highly diversified farms had more years of formal
education of 10.8 years than their counterparts from the less diversified farms of 9.5 years.
The t-test results indicate a P-value of 0.591 and this value is insignificant and thus education
level does not affect farm decisions. Education and experience play an important role in the
level of efficiency and that the effect of schooling should be positive as better educated
farmers are expected to have more skills to run their farm more efficiently (Steven et al.,
2006). Furthermore, investment in education can be seen as a strategy to improve agricultural
productivity, principally through its complementarity with inputs as fertilizers, pesticides,
irrigation, high-yielding varieties, and effective research.Steven et al., (2006), further argued
that farmers with more years of schooling tend to be less inefficient. This supports the logic
behind on-farm diversificationgiven that these results show positive correlation between
diversification and farm income.
Results show that the average length of experience of the highly diversified farmers is
10.10 years, while the less diversified farms averaged 12.54 years. However, the t-test results
26
in Table 4 show a P-value of 0.155 from the analysis of the level of experience between
farmers in the highly diversified and the less diversified farms. Therefore, the number of
years in farming is insignificant with respect to the decision to farm diversification. Stevenet
al., (2008) established that farming experience comes with age of the farmer. The results
indicate that the older farmers in Konoin District practice less farm diversification than the
young farmers.
Table 4: Continuous socio-economic characteristics of the highly diversified and the less
diversified farmers
Variable UnitsHighly
diversifiedLess diversified t-stat
Off-farm
incomeKES 8651.06(7380.00) 6110.00(6060.00) 1.72*
Household size Numbers 5.60 (1.50) 4.9 (1.45) 2.86***
DM's age Years 42.23 (8.14) 42.20 (11.94) 0.02
DM's education Years 10.8 (6.40) 9.5 (6.07) 0.54
DM's
experienceYears 10.11 (6.06) 12.54 (9.97) -1.55
Land holding Ha 1.39 (0.53) 1.02 (0.61) 3.85***
* Significant at 10%; ** significant at 5%; *** significant at 1%
The values in brackets are the respective standard deviations
4.2.2 Market characteristics of agricultural produce in Konoin District
According to the results in table 5, the market price for tea and the distance to the
market for dairy milk were the only factors found to be significantly affecting marketing of
the farm produce in Konoin District. The market prices for dairy milk, vegetables, maize,
beans and poultry eggs, and the distance to the market for tea, vegetables, maize, beans and
poultry eggs were found be insignificantly affecting marketing.
The market price for tea per kilogram also varied between the highly diversified (KES
39.20) and the less diversified farms (KES 36.70).This shows that there is a significant
difference between the highly diversified and the less diversified farms at 5 percent level of
significance with respect to the price of tea. This concurs with the results from a study which
was conducted by Mwaura and Ogise, (2007) who found that the highly diversified farmers
have the ability to access more market information and thus they have market arrangements
27
with different buyers unlike the less diversified smallholders who basically rely on KTDA to
buy their produce. The smallholder tea farmers at times are faced with poor prices as a result
of poor supply chain linkages under which KTDA operates. The price shown is a
cumulative of the average selling per kilogram of green tea delivered to the tea buying centre
and accepted, plus the bonus income disbursed to the farmers at every financial year. The
bonuses declared accrue from the profits made by KTDA from trading at the Mombasa
auction. More than three quarters of the smallholder farmers deliver their green tea to KTDA.
The other tea buyers include Finlays Limited, George Williamson Tea and Unilever Tea
Kenya Limited. These companies have contracted a few farmers especially the large scale
farmers from Konoin District as out-growers for the supply of green tea.
The distance to the market for dairy milk was found to be longer for the highly
diversified farms (1.0921 kilometres) than for the less diversified farms (0.865 kilometres)
and was significant at 10 percent level of significance. The positive t-value of 1.67 implies
that an increase in the distance to the market of dairy milk leads to increased diversification
majorly because farmers prefer short distances so as to save on cost of transport and also to
avoid the aspect of milk spoilage. The transport cost increases with distance thus making
farmers opt for enterprises with shorter distances to the market (Mahendrarajah et al.,
2005).The source of the market for dairy milk was the Brookside company
According to RoK, (2010), there is need to improve market access for smallholders
through better supply chain management. Divest from all state corporations handling
production, processing and marketing that can be better done by the private sector.
Competition from the private firms is expected to streamline the market distance problems
faced by the smallholder farmers in Konoin District. Furthermore, Alila and Atieno, (2006)
found that for livestock marketing, limited cattle holding grounds and meddling with stock-
routes has limited access to markets. Promoting marketing of agricultural produce will
require that the livestock markets be developed; the private sector be encouraged to invest in
cold storage; local authorities in collaboration with the private sector invest in storage
facilities; the government provides all-weather rural access roads, improve communication
facilities and market information systems among others, will lead to agricultural
growth.Sylvie et al., (2010) has it that uneven development process has made the price risks
to become a prominent risk for agricultural households.
28
Table 5: Continuous socio-economic characteristics of the highly diversifiedand the less
diversified farmers in Konoin District
Variable Units Highly diversified Less diversified t-stat
market price for tea KES 39.2 (6.39) 36.7 (6.51) -2.07**
market price for dairy milk KES 28.3 (3.08) 28.8 (6.69) -0.53
market price for vegetables KES 1308.70 (680.85) 870.0 (610.49) -1.93
market price for maize KES 1402.80 (425.89) 1491.30 (393.84) -0.97
market price for beans KES 4347.60 (994.29) 4740.00 (1079.30) -1.00
market price for eggs KES 10.00 (0.98) 10.2 (0.66) -0.80
Distance to market for tea Kms 3.59 (1.91) 3.57 (2.26) 0.06
Distance to market for dairy
milk Kms 1.09 (0.77) 0.87 (0.80) 1.67*
Distance to market for
vegetables Kms 1.18 (0.89) 0.83 (0.80) 2.34
Distance to market for maize Kms 0.93 (0.86) 0.92 (0.91) 0.05
distance to market for beans Kms 1.64 (1.20) 1.54 (1.40) 0.45
Distance to market for eggs Kms 2.22 (2.99) 2.76 (5.15) 0.82
* Significant at 10%; ** significant at 5%; ***
The values in brackets are the respective standard deviations while KES refers to Kenya
Shillings and Kms refers to kilometres.
29
4.2.3 Characteristics of Household incomes
Table 6 shows that the farmers in Konoin District derive most of their income from
farming. The mean monthly income is KES 8962.04 for the highly diversified farms, and
KES 7046.20for the less or non-diversified farms. The results also show that the highly
diversified smallholder farmers in Konoin District generate an average of KES 8651.06 per
month from off farm activities while the less diversified farmers earn an average of KES
6106.65 per month. Furthermore, the highly diversified farmers received larger sums from
remittances than the less diversified farmers, that is, KES 7350.00 for the highly diversified
farmers and KES 1042.00 for the less diversified farmers. This shows that on-farm income,
off farm income and remittances all contribute to total income. However remittances and off-
farm incomes do not contribute as much as farming which is the major source of livelihood.
The results inTable 6 indicate thatthe average off-farm incomes from the highly
diversified are significantly higher than those from the less diversified farms. This shows that
off-farm income is significant at 10 percent level of significance and thus it is a factor
promoting on-farm diversification. The finding corroborateswiththe results from the study
done by Mathenge and Tshirley,(2008) who found that households with high incomes from
off-farm activities are likely to have a stronger orientation towards them and a greater level of
knowledge useful in such activities.Likewise, those with high cash income from agriculture
are likely to have a stronger orientation towards agriculture and to have developed greater
capacity for it as a result. Indeed, a household’s agricultural cash income may reflect the
overall strategy and orientation towards cash crops and production for the market in general.
30
Table 6: Sources of income in Konoin District
Farm income off farm income Remittances
H. Div L.Div t-test H. Div L.Div t-test H.Div L. Div t-test
Monthly
income
(KES)
% % % % % %
Below 10000 74.47 76.64 0.35 59.57 77.57 0.22 100.00 100.00 0.19
10001-20000 17.02 15.89 0.43 34.04 21.50 0.21 0.00 0.00 0.24
20001-30000 2.13 7.48 0.74 6.38 0.93 0.42 0.00 0.00 0.13
30001-40000 6.38 0.00 0.68 6.38 0.00 0.30 0.00 0.00 0.56
Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00
Mean income 8962.04 7046.20 0.21 8651.06 6110.00 0.09* 7350.00 1040.00 0.44
Standard
deviation8550.00 6960.00 7380.00 6060.00 7210.00 1030.00
* Significant at 10 percent
Where H. Div refers to the highly diversified farms while L. Div refers to less diversified
farms.
4.2.4 Enterpriseallocation by small holder farmers
The district is characterized by fertile soil and good ecological conditions for a wide
range of agricultural activities. Being in a tea growing region, the majority of farmers are
deeply engaged in its production and sale for income (BDSP, 2005). The discussion below
shows the results of land allocation to various farm enterprises, farm output, market outlets
and prices, and the gross margins from the agribusinesses
Diversified smallholder farmers display a number of enterprises, the major one being
tea farming. The other farm enterprises which are dominant are dairy farming, vegetable
farming, maize farming, bean farming and poultry farming. Figure 3 shows the percent of
farm size occupied by the enterprises and their percent contribution to gross margins.Tea
takes an average of 57.2% of the farm while dairy farming takes 20.7%. The remaining food
crops share the remaining portion with each enterprise taking less than 10 percent. The
combined contribution of other enterprises apart from tea is also substantial at about 44
percent of gross margins indicating that the raising of other enterprises provides well
31
diversified sources of farm income. Wasswa et al., (2006) highlighted that higher income
would be realized by reallocating resources to better paying enterprises.
According to Hisham et al., (2002), farming is a risky business and enterprise
diversification is a risk management strategy an individual farmer can use to reduce the
adverse impact of wide fluctuations in yields and/or prices of specific commodities, whether
due to natural causes such as weather or the impact of uncertainties derived from business
cycles, wars, or other factors. Besides its risk-reduction benefits, diversification provides an
opportunity to exploit the potential complementary and/or supplementary relationships
between enterprises through improved utilization of the natural resources of the farm and
available operator and familylabour and management skills over the entire year.In addition,
enterprise diversification may be advantageous when local demand exists for specific
products.
Tabitha and Tidsell, (2003), concluded that farmers with better quality land allocate a
high proportion of it to non-food cash crops, which may expose some households to greater
risks of possible famine. The proportion of land allocated to food crops declines as the farm
size increases while the proportion of land allocated to non-food cash crops rises as the size
of farm increases. This is evident in Konoin District because the study has established that
despite majority of the smallholders owning less than 5 acres of land, more than half of the
available farm land is allocated to tea which is highly valued in the region. According to
figure 3, the proportion allocated to dairy enterprise follows that of tea given that it generates
more farm income than vegetables, maize, beans and poultry enterprises.
Figure 3: Land allocation and gross margins from diversified farming in Konoin
District
57.2
20.7 3.0 8.7 2.3 8.2
56.2
22.3
3.7 2.6 6.6 8.7
0.010.020.030.040.050.060.070.0
Land allocation and gross margins from diversified farming in Konoin District
Farm size(%)
Gross margins (%)
32
4.2.5 Cash versus subsistence farming in Konoin District
The diversified enterprises show interesting patterns as regards sale and retention. The
enterprises showing 100 percent marketing are tea and poultry. The enterprises that suffer the
greatest amount of retention are maize and beans while dairy and vegetables exhibit a high
percentage of sale (Figure 4).Although dairy milk was produced by 60.4 percent of farmers,
only 48.1 percent were engaged in farm sales while more the 50 percent retained their output.
Maize farming recorded the biggest disparity between production and sales. Although 51.9
percent of farmers produced maize, only 11 percent sold their maize. This shows the reliance
on maize as a common staple food in Konoin District. This scenario is supported by
Mathenge and Tschirley, (2008) who highlighted that maize is far and away the main staple
food in the country and it is majorly grown for subsistence purposes.
It is apparent that diversification is not based on economic considerations, but the
overriding factor is occasioned by food security concerns which necessitate a sizeable portion
of available land to be allocated to low-value subsistence crops whose productivity is also
low, to cater for household food security needs (Wasswa et al., 2006). Upton, (2000), found
that the bulk of the food, of both plant and animal origin, consumed in developing countries
is supplied by small-scale, semi-subsistence, producer-households. The majority are small-
holder mixed farmers, producing both crops and livestock. Further Upton, (2000) argued that
agricultural expansion is an essential component of the development process, not only to feed
the growing population but also because most of the people in developing countries make
their living from the land. Improvements in agricultural productivity contribute to the
alleviation of rural poverty. Despite the high rates of rural-urban migration and urban
population growth, the number of people engaged in agriculture is still rising in developing
countries, while the scope for further expansion of the area under cultivation is limited.
Figure 4: Cash versus subsistence farming in Konoin District
4.3The contribution of enterprise
The results presented in Table
enterprises. All the resultant proportions were significant at 1 percent level of significance.
Tea contributed the highest proportion (57 percent) to the total farm income followed by
dairy enterprise (21 percent), vegetable enterprise (9 percent), poultry enterprise (8 percent)
and bean farming (2 percent). Despite diversifying from tea farming, tea is still the major
crop which generates high income. According to Mwaura and Ogise, (2007) a large
proportion (60 percent) of tea growers
including dairy, maize and horticultural crops
three quarters of all farmers in Kenyan Highlands.
diversified to a degree of 0.39 according to Herfindahl index with tea allocated the biggest
share of the farm land. This implies that the level of on
categorized as less diversified since it falls bel
one (1).
79.9 79.9
60.448.1
21.4 16.2
0.010.020.030.040.050.060.070.080.090.0
% of smallholder farmers involved in cash farming
33
Cash versus subsistence farming in Konoin District
enterprise diversification to farm incomes
The results presented in Table 7 show the proportions of farm income from different
enterprises. All the resultant proportions were significant at 1 percent level of significance.
Tea contributed the highest proportion (57 percent) to the total farm income followed by
1 percent), vegetable enterprise (9 percent), poultry enterprise (8 percent)
Despite diversifying from tea farming, tea is still the major
crop which generates high income. According to Mwaura and Ogise, (2007) a large
) of tea growers in Kenya have diversified to other farm enterprises
including dairy, maize and horticultural crops but tea is the leading family enterprise among
Kenyan Highlands. Smallholder farming in Kono
diversified to a degree of 0.39 according to Herfindahl index with tea allocated the biggest
share of the farm land. This implies that the level of on-farm diversification in the district is
categorized as less diversified since it falls below 0.5 value in the continuum of zero (0) to
16.2
51.9
11.020.1
5.220.8 20.8
% of smallholder farmers involved in cash farming
teaprodcd
teasold
daryprodcd
darysold
vegprdcd
vegsold
maizprdcd
maizsold
show the proportions of farm income from different
enterprises. All the resultant proportions were significant at 1 percent level of significance.
Tea contributed the highest proportion (57 percent) to the total farm income followed by
1 percent), vegetable enterprise (9 percent), poultry enterprise (8 percent)
Despite diversifying from tea farming, tea is still the major
crop which generates high income. According to Mwaura and Ogise, (2007) a large
have diversified to other farm enterprises
s the leading family enterprise among
Smallholder farming in Konoin District is
diversified to a degree of 0.39 according to Herfindahl index with tea allocated the biggest
farm diversification in the district is
ow 0.5 value in the continuum of zero (0) to
daryprodcd
maizprdcd
34
Table 7: Proportion of farm enterprise incomes
*** significant at 1%
The values in brackets are the respective standard deviations
4.4 Characteristics of farmers based on the level of diversification
From the study, it was found that the highly diversified farms had bigger gross
margins than the less diversified farms from all the enterprises apart from tea.The significant
variability in gross margins was found to exist between the highly diversified and less
diversified farms with respect to tea, vegetable and maize farming. This finding is in line
with the results from the study done by Kavoi et al., (2002) who found that tea farming
becomes uneconomical at farm sizes of less than 0.10 hectares. The fact that the less
diversified farmers in Konoin District earn more income from tea than the less diversified
farmers implies that the issue of land fragmentation is yet to deny farmers of the benefits
accruing in the tea sector.According to the results in table 8,the highly diversified farms were
found to havea higher average grossmargin of KES201602.20than the less diversified farms
with an average of KES 176711.90. This shows that diversification promotes generation of
income and this corroborates with a study which was done by Maman et al., (2008) who
found that besides minimizing income fluctuations, farm diversification has a potential to
generate income. Despite this, the highly diversified farms arefewer than the less diversified
farms. Out of all the sampledfarms it was only 30.5 percent of them which were highly
diversified while 69.5 percent were less diversified.
Variable DescriptionResultant
proportions
Sig 2-
tailed test
Proptea proportion of net income from tea farming 0.57 (0.36) 0.00***
propdary proportion of net income from dairy farming 0.21 (0.27) 0.00***
propmaizproportion of net income from vegetable
farming0.03 (0.09) 0.00***
propveg proportion of net income from maize farming 0.09 (0.21) 0.00***
propbean proportion of net income from bean farming 0.02 (0.08) 0.00***
proppoltry proportion of net income from poultry farming 0.08 (0.21) 0.00***
Hd Herfindahl index 0.39 (0.24) 0.00***
35
The Levene’s test was greater than 0.05 (0.163>0.05) hence the results that assume
equal variances for both groups were used in the analysis. A significance value of 0.045 (less
than 0.05) indicates that there is significant difference between the two group means. A
value less than 0.05 means that the variability in the highly diversified and the less diversified
farms is not the same. This means that the variability in the two conditions is significantly
different. In a poor area, agricultural households may prefer to stick to traditional crops for
which risks are known, even though expected returns associated with alternative activities are
higher and a more diversified portfolio of activities would certainly reduce the expected
hazard of total income (Sylvie et al., 2010). Furthermore, Hisham et al., (2002) pointed out
that corporate farms tend to be more specialized than the smallholder farms. They also found
that increased farm diversification places greater demands on management and coordination
skills, improved managerial skills, education, and training better prepare the farm operator to
run a farm which is more diversified.
Table 8: Independent t-test for variances in incomes of the highly and less diversified
Farms
Independent Samples test
Farm enterprise
GM
Highly diversified Less
diversified
Levene's
test (sig)
Significance t-test
(2-tailed)
Tea 61672.77 117215.55 0.097 0.034**
Dairy 49496.89 37029.18 0.167 0.357
Vegetable 22710.22 1279.26 0.004 0.027**
Maize 10130.67 3672.71 0.526 0.006**
Poultry 19475.21 15299.89 0.655 0.721
Bean 38116.44 2215.32 0.002 0.259
Total 201602.20 176711.90 0.163 0.045**
** significant at 0.05 percent
4.5 Factors affecting farmers’ decision to diversify smallholder farming
The likelihood ratio chi-square of 202.49(20 degrees of freedom) with a p-value of
0.000 explains that Tobit model as a whole fits well to the study. The Tobit results in Table
9show that the market prices of farm produce except the market price for beans significantly
affect the decision to diversify.
36
The market price for tea had a coefficient of 0.013and a P-value of 0.016 which is
significant at 5 percent. This illustrates that a one unit increase in the market price of tea,
results to a 0.013decrease in on-farm diversification. This is because higher tea prices will
result to farmers specializing in tea production.
The market price for dairy milk had a coefficient of 0.032and a P-value of 0.000
which is significant at 1 percent level of significance. This indicates that for one unit increase
in the price of milk, there is a 0.032 point decrease in on-farm diversificationbecause higher
milk prices will result to farmers specializing in milk production and likely disregard of other
enterprises . Furthermore, the study established that the market price for vegetables had a
coefficient of 0.007and a P-value of 0.000 which is significant at 1 percent level of
significance. This illustrates that for one unit increase in the price of vegetables, there is a
0.007point decrease in on-farm diversification because higher vegetable prices will result to
farmers specializing in vegetable production. The research also established that the market
price for maize had a coefficient of 0.007and a P-value of 0.000 which is significant at 1
percent level of significance. This illustrates that for one unit increase in the price of maize,
there is a 0.007point decrease in on-farm diversification because higher maize prices will
result to farmers specializing in vegetable production.The market price for poultry eggs had a
coefficient of 0.026and a P-value of 0.016 which is significant at 1 percent level of
significance. This illustrates that for one unit increase in the price of poultry eggs, there is a
0.016 point decrease in on-farm diversification because higher poultry eggs’ prices will result
to farmers specializing in poultry production. The coefficients of prices of all the produce are
negatively related to on-farm diversification as shown in Table 8. This implies that a fall in
price of a certain farm produce leads to diversification into other farm enterprises with an aim
of mitigating risk in income decline. Diversification is the term used to reflect traits of farm
adjustment. It is construed as a means of leading farmers out of pressures on income and
profitability due to increased competition and decreases in commodity prices. Furthermore,
farmers have little or no control over prices they get for the commodities they produce,
(Abayomi and Fadeyibi, 2009).
The results also show that the distance to the market for dairy milk has a positive
coefficient of 1.826 and a P-value of 0.010 which is significant at 5 percent level of
significance. This indicates that for a one unit increase in the distance to the market for dairy
milk, there is a 1.826 point increase in the predicted value of on-farm diversification because
farmers will prefer shifting to other enterprises than to incur increased transport charges.
Concentrating on agriculture exposes farmers to risk because a sector in the agribusiness
37
industry stagnates or becomes competitively unprofitable, farmers’ prospects dim,
maintaining a livelihood is harder to achieve, and survival becomes a concern. For this
reason, farmers turn to diversification to survive the combined effect of high costs and low
commodity prices by adopting different enterprises so as to reduce their farm household
dependence on specific crop facing market price decline (Abayomi and Fadeyibi, 2009).
The results also show that the number of extension visits has a positive coefficient of
2.591 and a P-value of 0.010 which is significant at 5 percent level of significance. This
implies that for a one unit increase in the number of extension visits, there is a 2.591 point
increase in the predicted value of on-farm diversification.This is in line with the guidelines
from FAO, (2010) that agricultural extension services should also be reoriented to target the
smallest farmers. According to Muyanga and Jayne, (2006) the private extension provision is
generally skewed towards well-endowed regions and high-value crops. Remote areas and
poor producers especially those growing low-value crops with little marketable surplus are
poorly served. The government should therefore consider contracting the private sector to
offer extension services in the disadvantaged regions. Contracting out extension services
makes it possible to take advantage of all of the talent and experience existing in the field but
does not eliminate a government role which, in addition to funding, ensures quality
assurance, oversight, and provision of training and information to contracted services
providers. It has also been noted that even where technologies are relevant and
available,smallholder farmers sometimes have no access to them (Fliegel, 2001). Agricultural
technologies are also rapidly changing. Farmers need to be made aware of what technologies
work best, know how to use them, and generate effective demand for viable new technologies
to provide signals to input distribution system to supply them. (Davidsonetal., 2001). Their
studies concur with our results with respect to extension services and it can therefore be
concluded that these services should be enhanced in order for the farmers to be trained in how
to manage their scarce resources.
38
Table 9: Tobit regression results for factors affecting on-farm diversification
Variable Coef Std.err T P>|t|
primary occupation of the decision maker 0.009 0.012 0.75 0.453
Gender of the household head 0.184 2.178 0.08 0.933
Education level of the decision maker -0.002 0.005 -0.48 0.63
Off farm income 0.000 0.000 0.15 0.88
Land size -1.300 1.241 -1.05 0.297
Market price for tea -0.013 0.005 -2.45 0.016**
Market price for dairy milk -0.032 0.004 -7.86 0.000***
Market price for vegetables -0.007 0.002 -4.22 0.000***
Market price for maize -0.007 0.001 -5.26 0.000***
Market price for beans -0.001 0.001 -1.13 0.261
Market price for eggs -0.026 0.004 -6.33 0.000***
Distance to the market for tea 0.350 0.296 1.18 0.24
Distance to the market for milk 1.826 -1.827 -2.62 0.010**
Distance to the market for vegetables -0.334 0.638 -0.53 0.596
Distance to the market for maize 0.867 0.713 1.22 0.226
Distance to the market for beans -0.371 0.570 -0.65 0.516
Distance to the market for eggs 0.461 0.470 0.98 0.328
Extension visits 2.594 1.169 2.22 0.028**
Experience of the decision maker 0.215 0.225 0.96 0.34
Decision makers age -0.080 0.192 -0.42 0.676
Cons 49.598 8.230 6.03 0.000***
Sigma 14.809 1.022
Number of observations = 154
LR chi2 (20) = 202.49
Prob> chi2 = 0.000
Log likelihood = -493.066
Pseudo R2 = 0.1704
* Significant at 10%; ** significant at 5%; *** significant at 1%
39
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Conclusion
From the study, it was concluded that the combined gross margin contribution from
other enterprises apart from tea in Konoin District was 44 percent which indicates that
practicing of other enterprises provides well diversified sources of farm income. Tea farming
is highly practiced . Despite the result that the highly diversified farmers were found to earn
more total farm income than less diversified farmers, tea farming proved otherwise. The less
diversified tea farmers earn more income from tea than the highly diversified tea farmers.
This shows that as the size of land becomes smaller, the margin between revenue generated
and the cost of production narrows thus resulting in low income. It was established that the
dairy, vegetable and poultry enterprises generate more farm income than tea farming as the
land fragmentation from the highly diversified farms were found to be significantly higher
than those from the less diversified farms. Low incomes from the commercialized farming
and the small farm sizes under food production have brought uncertainties or fears among the
farmers and this affects their decision making. From the study, it was concluded that the there
is a negative correlation between the unit prices of agricultural produce and on-farm
diversification. A decline in the price of agricultural produce tends to force the smallholders
to diversify to other enterprises which are believed to have more stable prices. This decision
is made with the need of generating higher and stable farm incomes in order to sustain family
needs.
5.2 Recommendations and suggestions for further research
In order to further this study and hence give more advise to the policy makers, there is
need for a study on the economic standards over time with respect to the less diversified and
the highly diversified smallholder farmers. Time series data needs to be collected and
analyzed in order to provide a clear understanding on the impacts of diversification with time.
In order to advise farmers on the issue of economic land units for tea farming, more studies
need to be done on the same in order to come up with the current standards given that
population pressure is pushing land fragmentation to strenuous levels. The fact that the less
40
diversified farmers in the district earn more income from tea than the less diversified farmers
implies that the issue of land fragmentation is setting. Farmers need to be enlightened on the
diseconomies of land fragmentation in order to reverse the vice.
Further research study should also be done to find out how households diversify their
labour to work in different sectors whether on-farm or off-farm. The recommended study on
labour allocation will therefore supplement our research on how land is allocated into different
enterprises in order to cope with shocks related to agribusiness. It will therefore help to boost the
knowhow on allocation of factors of production within the farm in order to cope with risks and
uncertainties. The government should boost extension services in order to boost agricultural
performance. At present, these services have little impact on input use and land management
practices. Training content, technology focus and dissemination practices should be reassessed
and modified to increase their effectiveness.
41
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46
APPENDICES
Appendix1: Socio-economic and institutional characteristics of household heads
Variable Highly
diversified
(%)
Less
diversified
(%)
Total Chi-
Square
Sig (2-
tailed)
Gender of the decision
maker
Male 27.9 62.3 90.3
Female 2.6 7.1 9.7 0.116 0.733
Occupation of the
decision maker
Business 8.4 11.7 20.1
Employed 11.7 20.1 31.8
Farmer 10.4 36.4 46.8
Student 0 1.3 1.3 6.014 0.111
Accessed to credit No 22.7 50 72.7
Yes 7.8 19.5 27.3 0.1034 0.748
Access to farmers
training
No 19.5 47.4 66.9
Yes 11 22.1 33.1 0.2847 0.594
Access to extension No 16.9 45.5 62.4
Yes 13.6 24 37.6 1.4193 0.234
47
Appendix 1: Questionnaire for the study on on-farm diversification of farm enterprises
in Konoin District
Introduction
Although farm diversification has been documented to reduce uncertainties and improve
agricultural incomes, this has not been evidenced in Bureti district where smallholder farmers
have been engaging in diversified farming for over a decade and yet they still earn low
incomes and are unable to meet most of their household needs, resulting in low living
standards. The reasons leading to this scenario have not been understood and this study
intends to fill this knowledge gap.
NB: The results of this questionnaire will be used for research purposes only. This
information will be treated confidentially and the analysis of the data will ensure the
anonymity of the individual cases.
Questionnaire No: ______________
Name of the enumerator…………………………………………………
Date of interview……………………………………………………….
48
SECTION A: DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS
1. Respondent’s name………………………………………………………
2. Respondent’s sex
Male Female
3. Age of the decision maker (in years)………………………..
4. Respondent’s relation to the household head (tick where appropriate)
Head Spouse Child Worker
Other (specify)………………………..
5. Who makes the decisions on-farm activities to be practiced?
Head Spouse Child Worker
Other (specify)………………………..
6. What is the primary occupation of the household decision maker?
Businessman / businesswoman Employed Farmer Student
Other (specify)……………………………….
7. How many years has the decision maker been in farming?
8. Gender of the decision maker (tick where appropriate)
Male Female
9. Years of schooling of the decision maker (years)………………………
49
10. Household characteristics (people living together for the last 12 months)
11. Income profile (fill in the table below)
Source of income Amount in KES per month
Farm income
Nonfarm income
Remittances
Others
Code Name Gender
1=Male
2=Female
Education level
1=None
2=Primary
3=Secondary
4=Tertiary
Relation to
the head
1=Head
2=Spouse
3=Child
4=Parent
5=Worker
6=Other
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
50
SECTION B: ON-FARM DIVERSIFICATION
12. What is the size of your landholding (in acres)?
13. What is the size of your land under farming (in acres)?
14. Farm profile (provide information to fill the table below)
Code Type of farm activity Portion of the farm
under the activity
(in acres)
1 Tea
2 Dairy
3 Main vegetables (indicate the
crop)
4 Maize
5 Beans
6 Poultry
51
SECTION C: COST OF PRODUCTION
15 (a). Tea
Input Quantity Unit Cost per unit Total cost
(b). Dairy
Input Quantity Unit Cost per unit Total cost
(c).Main vegetables (indicate the crop)
Material Quantity Unit Cost per unit Total cost
(d). Maize
Material Quantity Unit Cost per unit Total cost
52
(e).Beans
Material Quantity Unit Cost per unit Total cost
(f). Poultry
Material Quantity Unit Cost per unit Total cost
53
16. SECTION D: INCOME PER ENTERPRISE (FOR THE PREVIOUS YEAR)
Quantity produced Quantity sold Price per unit (KES) Total (KES)
(a). Tea
(b). Dairy
(c).Main vegetables
(indicate the crop)
(d). Maize
(e).Beans
(f). Poultry
54
SECTION E: INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT
17. Please indicate the condition of the road in the region
Road conditions (Distance to the source of input)
Distance for all weather
road portion (Kms)
Distance for tarmacked
portion (Kms)
Tea
Dairy
Main vegetables (indicate
the crop)
Maize
Beans
Poultry
Road conditions(Distance to the market outlet)
Distance for all weather road
portion(Kms)
Distance for tarmacked
portion(Kms)
Tea
Dairy
Main vegetables (indicate the
crop)
Maize
Beans
Poultry
18 (a). Did you receive extension services last year?
Yes No
55
18 (b). If yes, fill in the table below.
Extension
services offered
(see codes
below)
Extension
provider
(see codes
below)
Number of
contact times in
2010
Did you pay for
the services?
1=YES 0=NO
Cost per each
visit
Extension service codes: 1=crop production(specify the crop) 2=Dairy production
Extension service provider: 1 =Government worker 2=Private extension provider 3= NGOs
4=other farmer 5=other (specify)
19. Did any household member attend farmers’ training last year?
Yes v No
19 (a). If yes, how many times during the year?
19 (b). What was the training about?
Farm management (FAM)
Entrepreneurship (ENTRE)
Production technology (TECH)
Others specify (ETC.)
19 (c). How else do you get information on-farm diversification and market for output?
Radio Newspapers
Neighbors Other (specify) _____________________
56
SECTION F: SOURCES OF CAPITAL
20. What are sources of capital used to run on-farm diversification?
Savings Loans Salary /wages from off farm employment
Other (specify) _____________________________
21 (a). Did the household try to access credit last year?
Yes No
21 (b). If yes, fill in the table below
Source of
credit
Granted
1=Yes
0=No
Type of
Credit
1=Money
2=in kind
Amount
requested
(KES)
Purpose Repaymen
t period
Interest
rate
Give
reason if
not
granted
Source codes: 1= Commercial bank 2=AFC 3= input store 4= local money lender 5=other
(specify)
Purpose codes: 1=Capital for off farm business 2= farm inputs (specify) 3= household
consumption 4= medication 5= other (specify)
Not granted: 1= lack of security 2= outstanding loan 3= other (specify)
Repayment periods code: 1= weekly 2= monthly 3= quarterly 4= semiannually 5= annually
6= other (specify
